A Sad Awakening
by kabukimono
Summary: Ringabel wakes one night on Grandship, plagued by doubt and nightmares. When he climbs over the railing to clear his head, he... lets go. (Warning for suicide attempts and major character death, serious injuries, and mental illness). Meant to be a "what-if" scenario of an earlier story (Ambiguous).
1. Chapter 1

Warning for: **Suicide Attempts, and Major Character Death.** This may appear to be a little shippy but it's not meant to be. And as always, I don't support Ringabel's views and his method of things.

**Spoilers for Chapter 5 and beyond/Ringabel's past.**

Speaking to a friend about Ambiguous, so it was on my mind as I thought 'wow what would have happened if he had let go?'

What would have happened indeed. The first few paragraphs are more or less identical to Ambiguous (as it was intended to be another possible outcome to it, I ended up editing it a little bit...), but then it diverges from there.

* * *

Some nights are better than others. Some nights he doesn't wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, mouth dry and stomach churning, heart racing until he's picked out every single one of his three companions sleeping in the quiet air. He doesn't mistake shadows for blood and the pale moonlight for the pallor of death.

Some nights he doesn't slip out of bed and stumble out of the room he shares with the three other warriors of light, right underneath the bridge aboard the giant airship they've taken to calling home in this world and the past. Doesn't drag himself to the edge of the deck for a breath of fresh air, arms tight around himself in a futile attempt to subdue the shivering that overtakes him from the chill inside and out. Doesn't succumb to the pain in his head and chest and upend the contents of his stomach over the side of the worn railing, tears trailing down his face and mixing with the bile, just missing the loose black undershirt he wears that is very little protection against the elements.

Tonight is not one of those nights.

Ringabel kneels beside the railing, gripping it until he can feel the splinters penetrate his skin. Good. The pain brings him something to focus on, to distract from the afterimages of death that still linger behind his eyes. He can almost taste the blood in the air, pooling across the old wood of the deck he stands on now - and he inhales sharply, letting his eyes slip shut.

Some nights he is unable to sleep at all for the nightmares - memories - that plague him.

Sighing deeply, the taste of sick still heavy in his mouth and the back of his throat, he pulls himself up and leans over the railing, rubbing his face with tender, sore fingers. Tonight, they've anchored near Florem. Though they've cleaned up the Blood Rose Legion in the area, there is no need to be afraid of any attacks even if they hadn't. Grandship is a fortress, solid and impenetrable.

After all, the only one who has ever breached its railing is Alternis Dim.

The thought of that man, his old self, makes him sick. With each passing day and night, more of his memories return, and it makes it harder and harder to reconcile the Ringabel-that-is with the Alternis-that-was. Where one died and the other was born only for to die in exchange for the original. His eyes slide over the patch of wood that marked where Alternis - any Alternis - had fallen over the edge and into oblivion, fingers trailing over scored marks the man's armor had left in the wood, as though to memorialize his greatest failures.

Without thinking, telling himself he simply wants to get a better look, Ringabel climbs easily over the railing at that very spot, eyes fixed on the darkness below, his hand keeping a tight grip to prevent an accident. At this height the skies are nothing but a black void, nothing like the bright light and churning waves that would have been at the base of the Holy Pillar. If he concentrates he can make out the ground below, the fields of flowers they've left their anchor.

His head feels light. His hand is cramping and burning, the splinters digging in deeper as his grip tightens. If the old railing were to give away under his weight...

His breath, his pulse, all sounds so very loud in his ears as a shock runs through his body. The splinters pierce the skin under his fingernails as his fingers curl, and as though on instinct...

Ringabel lets go.

For a moment there's panic, absolute panic, before peace and acceptance take hold. Then he's weightless and the sound of wind rushing around him drowns out the sound of his breath and his pulse- but not the scream that rips right through him.

He can't turn mid-air to see her, but he would recognize it anywhere. Edea. Lovely, beautiful Edea has seen him, and now he's flooded with regret. It fills his senses, overwhelms him, and he feels tears prick his eyes. He can't do this, he can't. He can't do this to her, to them, and to himself. What has he done?

There's not much longer, but his last thought is that he has to-

Edea screams again.

When she had first seen him over the edge, she'd felt worry. But he'd done it before, just the once, and had come back over when he'd said his name. She had never mentioned it to the others, that he'd been on the wrong side of the railing, but it had haunted her for several days.

Now her heart leaps in her chest, and she opens her mouth to call out to him when he. He lets go, and she watches in horror mid-word as he disappears from sight.

For a moment her brain turns off completely, unable to comprehend what she's just seen. But that moment is short and then she screams.

She has to stop to draw breath, sobs ripping out of her chest as she lunges forward, screaming out his name again. But by the time she throws herself against the railing to look for him, he's out of sight. It's so dark, and it's so far down.

No, no, no. This can't be happening.

Edea screams again and again, and her nails claw at the railing, splinters drawing blood as she tries to scramble over the edge. It's too late to see him, to save him, but perhaps if she can go on after him, she'll be able to -

"Edea, no!" Tiz's voice cuts through the grief in her chest as she feels the shepherd's strong arms around her waist, dragging her back down onto the deck. She fights him for just a few moments before it's too much and she collapses against him, her screams dying down to miserable sobbing. She hasn't cried this much in years, if ever, and she _aches_.

"Edea, please stop!" Agnès cries as she kneels beside them both, her eyes wide and confused. She'd been woken by the sound of the screaming and the sight of Tiz rushing out of the inn and still didn't know what was happening. She only knows that something was dreadfully wrong, and that Edea was… hurt? She had come around the corner just in time to see Tiz drag Edea away from the worn railing of their ship, and doesn't want to assume the worst, but..

Tiz tries to shush Edea, but his heart is sinking as he listens to her sobs. Edea wouldn't have screamed if something dire hadn't happened, and though he doesn't know what has transpired on the deck, judging by the distraught woman in his arms and Ringabel's complete absence, he - he guesses. He doesn't want to think on it, but there are no other options, and his heart aches as his mind attempts to wrap around the possibilities. Ringabel *_wouldn't_*, would he?

Would he?

Edea is sobbing so hard that she begins to retch, and Tiz hastily moves her so that he can rub at her back and panic truly begins to take hold in him. His breath comes in little gasps as he tries to center himself for both of the women. The only ones he has left.

"Edea?" Agnès tries again, wondering if she should cast white magic. "Edea, what?"

"Ringabel." Edea sobs out, trying to wipe her face with the edge of her nightgown. "He… he…." All she could do was point at the railing.

It sinks in, then. What's happened. Where's he gone.

Agnès claps her hands over her mouth in horror as she stares at the railing, and tears begin to form in her eyes. Oh, Ringabel… no! She rises to her feet to move toward the railing, when she's stopped in her tracks by a hand on her shoulder.

"What's going on here?" Datz's voice is thick, confused with sleep, but his eyes are wide with worry. He'd heard the screaming from the tavern and had thought they were being invaded or worse. He was a big man, but could move fast when needed. This was one of those times, and he knew Zatz wouldn't be far behind.

Agnès can't speak through the crying that's started, and Edea is still quietly crying, so it's Tiz who speaks, his voice carefully measured through his grief. "Ringabel went over the edge."

The words hang in the air, heavy and horrible.

Datz lets out a shaky breath. "Are you -"

"Yes!" Edea all but screams. "He just- he went over." She'd seen it, clear as day, even in the dim light of the lanterns that lined the deck of Grandship. "Please, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that if…" She couldn't speak anymore, clutching her chest and doubling over in pain.

Zatz joins them then, just as sleepy but worried, and together the two Shieldbearers try to tend to the despondent warriors - children, all of them. The soldiers had seen plenty of horrors while serving in the army, but few were as difficult to deal with as the death of a comrade - at his own hands, no less. Datz picks up Edea and Agnès both in his arms, and Zatz brings up the rear with Tiz, his hand firm on the teen's back as Tiz succumbs to his own shaking and crying.

Edea finally stops sobbing somewhere near dawn, though she doesn't stop *_crying_*, tears silently rolling down her cheeks. Tiz doesn't know what's worse, seeing her react so violently or not seeing her react much at all, staring into space while she cries brokenly. She stays curled up in the Proprietress' soft bed with Agnès, the two of them bundled up in quilts and blankets while the older woman promises the remaining men that she'll take care of them.

"Not even my food can heal a broken spirit," the woman says, her voice tired. "But it'll keep their bodies warm until their hearts are ready."

Tiz chokes down a cup of black, bitter coffee, thinking with an ache in his chest that this was Ringabel's preferred brew. But he needed to be awake.

"You don't have to come with us," Datz rumbles, crossing his arms.

"It's probably better that you don't," Zatz agrees, shaking his head. "We'll take care of things from here."

They were going to try and find the body. Agnès had begged them not to leave him to the wildlife.

"I have to do this." Tiz shakes his head firmly. His mind is made up. Ringabel had tried to play the part of an older brother to him - to them all - and while he could be a little strange and most certainly inappropriate at times, his tendency to look after them had been appreciated. Now that he was gone, the role of brother in the group would fall on Tiz - Ringabel would joke he was more like their *mother* - but he owed it to someone he could consider his best friend to at least find his body and bring him home. Lay him to rest somewhere peaceful, perhaps in Eternia? "Ringabel would do the same."

Of this, he is certain. Though he doesn't know if he'll be able to see the remains of Ringabel's body, he has to try.

They set off as soon as it was light enough, a grim gathering. There's not a wide area to search, considering they had been anchored for the night, though Zatz thinks aloud that the distance and the wind wouldn't have made it a solid straight drop.

Tiz wanders behind the two soldiers aimlessly, his thoughts whirling. How could he have not seen the signs of Ringabel being so far gone with grief and pain that he'd consider doing this? What had he missed? This was his fault. He should have noticed, or said something. It should have been his turn to go after Ringabel last night, but Edea had already been awake and she'd gone instead. He would do anything to repeat last night, to go after Ringabel immediately. Edea didn't need to see that… Ringabel didn't need to *_do_* that.

"Hey, Tiz." Datz says over his shoulder, his voice low. "There's nothing you could have done to prevent this."

Tiz's head snaps up, his cheeks flushing. Had he been thinking aloud? But the two men are giving him weak smiles.

"It's on your face. And it's… something we all think," Datz explains further. "But if you could have done something, you would have."

Zatz nodded. "Yeah. You guys wouldn't have just let him… do that. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn't your fault."

A lump forms in Tiz's throat, and he feels his eyes burn. He tries to swallow back the tears, but it's too much. The events of the night catch up with him and he struggles to breathe, pressing his hands to his chest.

Datz immediately turns back to him. "Zatz, take him back to the ship. I'll look for Ringabel until you come back."

Tiz jerks his arm out of Zatz's grip and stumbles away. "N-no, I'm fine!" He side-steps the two men and moves forward quickly, before Datz gets the idea to pick *_him_* up, and he makes it all of five paces before he stops short, eyes widening at the … *_thing_* he's just found in a patch of grass.

The form is broken, so broken, shattered and twisted and even though most of the blond hair is stained brown with dried blood, and the black clothes are torn, there's enough of *_Ringabel_* left to identify him, and the coffee that Tiz had choked down threatens to come right back up.

It doesn't help when Datz grabs him by the back of his collar and yanks him away from it.

"Get him out of here," Datz orders to Zatz, but Tiz struggles.

"Wait, wait!" He's already seen it - seen him, he can handle this! He's not just going to leave Ringabel now. He has to bring him back home to Edea and Agnès, to Eternia. He has to see this through, no matter how his stomach churns and his chest aches.

"There's nothing you can do, Tiz." Zatz's voice is a little strained as he tries to wrestle with the taller, bulkier teenager, but he's got more experience.

"I - I can't save him," Tiz accepts, his voice tightening. Datz has turned away from them to kneel by the body. "But I promised the girls I'd bring him home. Let me stay, I'll stay out of the way and -"

"He's alive," Datz says, his voice incredulous.

That stops Tiz and Zatz cold, and once he feels Zatz's hold on him loosen, the younger boy darts forward to kneel beside Ringabel's broken form. The relief is so great that he can even ignore the horrific injuries as he scans his friend's body for the same sign of life that Datz had seen and finds it.

Ringabel's chest is bruised and somewhat bloody, but there's an uneven, pained rise and fall. Blood bubbles at his mouth with his breath. Somehow, despite all odds, he's breathing. He's alive.

A laugh forces out from Tiz's throat, and he very nearly throws himself over Ringabel's body in relief, stopping only at the last moment when he remembers that the other man is terribly injured. He's alive, but for how long? Tiz rummages around in his pack for a potion.

"Will this help?" he asks.

"I don't know how we're going to save him," Datz replies, his face grim. "But we'll do it."

Zatz, far faster than either of them, runs back to Grandship to fetch Agnès. Her healing magic is the best among them, and she's needed desperately, as much as they don't want to expose her to the body - to Ringabel's injuries. If they want to save him, they must.

Potions are more effective when taken internally, but Ringabel doesn't stir when Tiz carefully slides his hands under the man's head. For as much blood as there is in his hair, his head thankfully seems relatively uninjured; it's his legs that took the brunt of the impact, and Tiz doesn't know how far healing magic can go in fixing *_that_*. But they drip one potion into his open, slack mouth, and while most of it drips out from between his lips, the unconscious man instinctively swallows part of it.

Another is dripped over the worst of his open wounds to help knit them back together over his bones. Not too much, else they'll heal wrongly and he could spend the rest of his life crippled, but enough to ease his breathing. Stabilize him until Zatz and Agnès return.

Unable to help himself, Tiz wets a handkerchief in some water from his flask and uses it to clean up Ringabel's bloody face, knowing just how much the other man prides himself on his appearance. He's… pained, obviously, his brows knitted even in his forced sleep, and there's still that blood that's bubbled up from his mouth - some internal damage would not be unlikely, given the circumstances, but he's alive, and that's all that matters.

Tiz's tears help to wash some of the blood off as well.

When Agnès returns, she gasps at the horrific sight in front of her.

"How could he - how is he alive?" She says, even as she kneels in front of him, her need to heal her friend overtaking the urge to be sick. The glow of white magic emanates from her hands before she even settles.

"Be careful. We need to set his broken bones before we heal those, but if you can get him stabilized, we can get him back on the ship." Datz informs her in a quiet voice. From there, they could let him rest in the inn and heal him or even take him elsewhere for treatment. He could use it, both physical and mental. Datz has seen this too many times before.

Agnès nods to show that she has heard him, before focusing back on Ringabel's chest. The way that it caved in slightly worried her, as did the drying trail of blood from his mouth and nose.

"Edea?" Tiz asks Zatz, unable to take his eyes off the healing process.

"Asleep. Proprietress knocked her out with some sleepy tea. Said Edea started sobbing again." Zatz informs him as he kneels beside the other man.

Tiz nods. It was for the best. Ringabel was still in a precarious state, and if he were to slip away from them - which he wouldn't, because they would save him - it would just hurt Edea more if she knew he'd survived the initial fall.

As Agnès continues to work, they watch, and the sun moves slowly overhead. Progress is agonizingly slow as the men carefully set Ringabel's bones every time Agnès moves to a new area to heal. His chest and torso are the most dire area; Tiz thinks the older man probably broke a few ribs when he'd fallen, and once Agnès has healed them, his breathing evens out. His head wound is next; the last thing that Ringabel needs is another bout of amnesia from a blow to the head.

His legs were the biggest remaining injuries, but those could wait until later, Datz finally decides when the sun was overhead.

"The Lady Vestal needs to rest, and we need to get him indoors. He'll get a sunburn at this rate." His statement is punctuated with a grim laugh, but they manage to move Ringabel onto a makeshift stretcher. He groans in his sleep, a beautiful sound.

Datz carries a drained Agnès back to the ship while Zatz and Tiz handle the unconscious man on the stretcher they support from either side. Just as earlier, they go slowly so as to not injure him further, and once both Vestal and vagrant are placed into a lifeboat they'd rigged many months earlier to haul unconscious party members into Grandship, they hoist it up and over the railing.

Agnès curls slightly over Ringabel, mindful of his dreadful wounds, as the lifeboat is lifted. He's breathing better, more evenly, than he'd been when she'd first seen him. Truthfully, his battered form is enough to make her feel ill, but what's more important is that he's alive. Silent tears drip down her face and smear into the dried blood on his arms as she reaches up to gently push his hair away from his face. She knows the man would want to look his best for when Edea sees him.

"Crystals," she prays quietly, so that only the two of them can hear. "Please save him. Please save this precious companion of mine." He might be alive, but they still don't know if he will ever wake, ever walk.

When the lifeboat is settled on the deck and Tiz reaches in to extract her, she's still curled over Ringabel, weeping.

"You've done well," Tiz tells her as he settles her into his arms. She leans her head against his shoulders, looks at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Thank you so much, Agnès. I think we can save him." She sniffles, with a nose as red as Edea's ribbon and tries to give him a smile, but it's weak. Tired.

He'll let her get some rest with Edea, he decides, as Datz carefully transports Ringabel to the inn. With their pilot out of commision, their options are very limited. While both of the Shieldbearers know how to steer Grandship across open water and flat fields, Ringabel is the only one with knowledge enough to really navigate the behemoth airship across continents. It's as though they're stranded until he's well enough. Stranded, and unable to seek help.

But there's nothing they can do about it. The haze of grief in his heart had dissipated slightly at the discovery that Ringabel yet lived, and it threatens to come back again as panic. Tiz shoves it to the side as he hands Agnès over to the Proprietress, politely waves away a small, light lunch, and jogs back to the inn. They have Salve-Maker, and Spiritmaster… he runs over each of the Jobs in his head to determine which ones would save his friend.


	2. Chapter 2

Ringabel _aches_.

He aches and hurts and every single part of his body is alive and screaming in pain, it seems. He can feel the pain in excruciating detail - in his fingers, his back, his ribs, even his hair. He had felt agony like this only once before, when he had fallen into the magma at Mt. Karka and the torture at the hands of that fat pig that had followed. It's a pain that tells him that he should have died, and a pain that makes him wish he were dead. Not even the cool cloth on his face can save him from the heat of the pain.

It hurts to breathe, even to think, to listen to the quiet buzzing around him and he forces out a quiet, tortured sob from his parched throat to make it stop.

To his relief, the buzzing stops.

With that pain gone, he whimpers and it hurts as a tear falls down his face to wet his ear and hair.

A warm, wonderful, healing glow overtakes his sense and he sighs quietly as the pain begins to fade. It fades enough that he slips back into sleep, and as darkness overtakes him again, he wonders what on earth had happened.

He can't even remember anymore.

Edea had woken up feeling empty and dead inside. Over and over she kept mentally replaying the image of Ringabel disappearing out of her sight over Grandship's railing. Was this how the man had felt when her counterpart in his world had perished? Seeing a loved one die right in front of her eyes, unable to do anything. Her fault. There's a giant hole in her chest, too big to be filled. A Ringabel shaped hole. She couldn't stand him most of the time, but he was her friend. He'd been there for her when she needed him, and now he wouldn't be there again. Never in her life had she thought he'd just… he'd just.

Her lip trembles and she turns her face into the pillow again, mentally apologizing to the Proprietress for getting her pillow wet. She'd faced the death of her friends and her family, multiple times over multiple worlds. She'd held both Master Kamiizumi and Einheria as they passed. She'd prepared herself for it as inevitable; all of them had ideals so important they would give their lives. Seeing Ringabel just vanish into the void like that was shocking. Realizing that he must have chosen that path, suffering silently despite laughing their side, and dwelling on his long fall, wondering if he had heard her scream for him - she wasn't prepared for this.

How could she have been? People weren't supposed to just disappear like that. She could understand if he died for his ideals, died for a purpose. But his death at his own hands was senseless. Meaningless. She just couldn't understand what would make him choose death over them - over her, after all his claims of love, why he'd been laughing and joking with them just the night before, why she hadn't been faster to follow him, why she hadn't yelled out his name to bring him back over the railing.

Her sobs start anew as she thinks about Alternis going over. Twice. Three times. Ringabel had fallen from Grandship once before, with no one to cry out for him. Ringabel was… was…

Gentle hands push her hair away from her splotchy face and she looks up to see Agnès resting beside her. Tired, worn, but awake.

"Don't cry, Edea." Agnès tries to tell her, but there are tears in the vestal's eyes as well. Edea rubs at her face, feeling foolish for weeping, and inches closer to her friend. There's just the three of them now. Ringabel would be upset to know he'd made her cry, even if it was his fault, the idiot.

"I'm not crying," she lies. "I just… why didn't he let us know?"

"Ah, Edea…" Agnès tries to continue, but is interrupted as Edea continues on, anger rising in her to drown out the grief.

"He always looked out for us! Was always meddling whenever he thought we looked tired or sad! Telling me how angels shouldn't cry, or that his shoulder was always there, or his bed was always open. He was being an idiot. He was lying to us the whole time." Her chest begins to heave again, aching, and she fists her hands in her nightgown, thinking in the back of her mind that she needs to change. Had they found him and brought him onboard? If so, she'd like to take him back to Eternia. Father would want to know.

"Edea…"

"He lied to us. He lied to me. I thought I could be ready for the deaths of my friends. Even my own. But I thought we'd die in battle, fighting for what we believed in. Not…. he just jumped. Just… jumped. How could he do that to us?!" She's being irrational, she knows. But the grief in her chest is making way to anger. He'd been all smiles, even weak ones, when his friends were upset or having problems, but the darkness had been eating him away inside. It just wasn't *_fair_*. He would protect them, but hadn't allowed them to protect him in turn.

"Edea," Agnès says a little more firmly to pierce through the blonde's ranting, rolling over onto her forearms and touching the other woman's shoulder. "He… he's alive."

The vestal's words are heard but they take a few moments to register through Edea's cloudy thoughts. When she understands exactly what Agnès has just said, Edea stares at her with wide, confused eyes. "He's what?"

"He's alive. Severely injured, but alive… I believe they took him to the inn." Tiz had tucked Agnès back into bed with Edea and thanked her profusely before running off again, but she knew they only had one place to take the horrifically injured Ringabel.

Edea can hardly believe what she's hearing. Ringabel was alive? After the distance he must have fallen, he was alive? After scaring them, after jumping from Grandship like he was some dumb Dark Knight, he was alive?

"I'm going to kill him," she says as she throws the heavy covers off of her and sits up. Enough of this moping around!

"... I beg your pardon?" Agnès sits up in bed as well.

"We're going to heal him up until he's good as new, and then I'm going to kill him." Or at least pummel him to a pulp for worrying them all like that. Edea growls slightly under her breath. Of course, the threat is an empty one, but he won't know that.

And her chest hurts again, though she's thankful that somehow, miraculously, he'd survived the fall. Maybe then she can get some answers out of him, why he'd do something so stupid.

"I really don't think…" Agnès' protest is cut off when the door, already slightly ajar, opens.

"Ahaha!" The Proprietress, likely drawn by the commotion, has come to check on them. "Feeling a little better, girl? Heard the news?"

"Yes!" Edea beams at the older woman, and her stomach growls, having come to associate her with food. "We're going to go beat him up. You can come join us, if you'd like."

The woman laughs again and stands aside so that Edea can leave her bedroom, a small room that's tucked above the storage area in the tavern. There's several others, that she's used for rowdy and well-liked patrons and for when Datz, Zatz, and Ringabel crashed after a night of drinking games. "Then you'll need your strength. I've got lunch waiting for you. And you as well, Lady Vestal." She nods to Agnès, who is scrambling to get out bed.

"Thanks!" Though to be honest, the idea of food still makes her a little sick, which is just another reason to be mad at Ringabel. He's ruined her appetite!

But she can scarf down at least a little bit of the light lunch the Proprietress has set out for them, crackers and berries and warm soup.

"You're not going to really hurt him, are you?" Agnès asks her while they quickly eat.

"Of course not," Edea reassures her. "Not badly."

"Edea…"

Edea sighs. She shouldn't joke around with Agnès, not like this. "I'm not going to hurt him. I mean, I'm mad. Really mad, and I feel like I could. But I'm not about to go beat up an injured man. Give me some credit, will you?" Even if the man was Ringabel, and he'd gotten himself into this situation, she had *_some_* scruples. She'd wait until he was fully healed from this. Healed and truly better.

They drink several glasses of juice to re-hydrate themselves before the Proprietress lets them leave with a pile of food on a tray for the men.

"I healed him some already," Agnès says quietly as they make their way up toward the inn. "But he's still horribly injured. I don't know how on earth he even survived."

Edea feels her stomach turn over, threatening to lose its lunch. Maybe she shouldn't have eaten? "He's got the devil's luck, that one. Don't they say that only the good die young?"

"Edea!"

"Sorry," Edea apologises, feeling a little chastised. She's just had a shock, she's allowed to joke about it. It's better than continuing to torment herself over the why. She's very thankful that he's alive, because she hadn't been ready to accept one of her closest friends had killed himself. Maybe now her mind can stop replaying the scenario in her head, blaming herself for all the things she had done wrong. "Sorry," she repeats, and a lump forms in her throat.

She was never going to forgive him, especially if he somehow managed to die after all of this. He had to survive - she even wanted him to outlive her at this point, even if he might hate it, just so that she never had to deal with this again.

The inn was quiet as usual, long abandoned. They'd cleared out a section for their own use, but there were still plenty of rooms that were full of cobwebs and dust. Edea checks the room they usually sleep in, but it's empty.

"We're in here." She turns around to see Zatz poking his head out of a room just a few doors down. "They're both asleep." They?

When she enters the room, she sees that Tiz is still wearing the Salve Maker costume, even though it's mostly covered by the blankets he's tucked into. Datz is sitting on the edge of that bed, a folding table with a deck of cards in front of him.

The other bed in the room is taken up by Ringabel. Edea feels that lump in her throat rise at the sight of him.

Oh, he's battered. Broken. His face and shoulders and arms are bruised, and there's bloody bandages around his forearms. Judging by the pile of rags by the door, they'd had to cut his clothing off of him, and he looks so pale and vulnerable. There's something wrong with his legs, she thinks as she sets the tray down and carefully approaches him. The blankets on his lower half are thick, almost abnormally so, to cover him and keep his injuries from being so obvious.

Edea's eyes are burning as she smooths some of the covers over his side. The other men have cleaned him up somewhat but there's still dried blood on his arms, down his chest… he looks terrible, half-dead and torn up, and this is after being healed? She can only imagine what he'd looked like when they first found him, and forces herself to focus on the even movement of his pale chest as he breathes. So focused in fact, that she doesn't hear Agnès speaking to Datz.

"Tiz?"

"Fell asleep just a little while ago. Tried to make a few medicines that might help Ringabel heal a little faster, or fix his legs, but it's slow going. He's okay, just tired. Don't think he slept well last night."

"His legs are still…"

"Probably shattered. He'll be lucky if he walks again." Datz sighs. In the army, he'd seen plenty of men who'd lost use of limbs. It was always a terrible thing to behold. Granted, they were lucky that Ringabel was even alive, but if they didn't fix his legs, the other man might want to be dead anyway.

"He'll be fine," Edea says softly, nudging the back of his hand with one of her fingers. "He's gone through worse, you know. Fell into lava, tortured, nursed back to health. Then he lost his memory after falling through the Holy Pillar." After realizing that Ringabel was Alternis, and that the journal was literally his journal, she'd gone back through the pages. In hindsight, the amount of things he'd been subjected to were horrifying. Too much for one man in one lifetime.

"Yeah," Datz agrees. "He's strong guy. He'll pull through."

Zatz has gone into another room to bring chairs for Edea and Agnès, and sets them down now before sitting at the other end of the card table.

But before sitting, Edea crosses over to the basin of water near the door so that she can wet a cloth. Ringabel's a mess. She knows he'll be mortified to learn that she or Agnès had seen him in such a state, but she can try to clean him, just a little.

"Thank you for staying here with us," Agnès says as she sits in the chair, angling it so that she can lean against the bed Tiz is sleeping on.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Ringabel's a good friend. And you kids have enough on your mind. Let us take care of this as much as we can." Datz smiles at her.

Zatz is grinned at her too. "Yeah, we've got this! We're good for more than just our brawn, you know. With the two of us involved, Ringabel will be back on his feet and annoying us all before you know it."

Agnès giggles. Edea smiles as well as she wipes Ringabel's face gently with a wet cloth. The bruises aren't so easily cleaned off, but at least the blood can be washed away - it's a start. She listens vaguely as the others continue to make small talk behind her back, Agnès asking them if they have any experience in this sort of thing.

"This is where you've been, Agnès!" Airy's light announces her arrival just moments before her voice does.

Tiz stirs in the bed and opens his eyes, rubbing at his face.

"Ah, Airy…" Agnès feels a pang of guilt. In the commotion from last night, and in the exhausting hours that had followed, she hadn't thought to find Airy. The fairy usually slept separate from them, her flickering light a distraction at best.

The fairy circles around the room, hovering in front of each of them in turn to examine their worn, tired faces. Finally, she covers above Ringabel, before settling on his pillow. "What happened? What did I miss last night?!"

"There was… an accident." Edea explains. A part of her doesn't know if she wants to tell Airy exactly what happened. Airy doesn't need to know, does she?

"I didn't hear anything at all," Airy shakes her head. "And no one thought to come get me? What if Agnès had been injured?"

Tiz speaks up before Edea does. "Agnès was fine. We would have gotten you if there was any worry." He too, didn't feel right telling Airy exactly what happened.

"Is he going to be okay?" Airy asks, flitting off the pillow to land on Agnès' lap. "This isn't going to take too long, is it? We still have Crystals we need to awaken."

Edea's hand twitches as she imagines reaching for a flyswatter. "The Crystals can wait. We can't even go anywhere with him like this. He needs time to heal."

"The Crystals _can't_ wait. The world could be swallowed in darkness. I'm worried about Ringabel too, but we can't wait forever for him to get better. Don't you care what happens?"

Datz and Zatz stay wisely quiet, eyes flicking between the group, though when Edea stands and advances on the fairy, the taller man tenses.

"Of course we care!" Edea insists, her hands balling into fists. "We want to finish awakening the Crystals just as much as you or Agnès." Even if their efforts had not yet borne fruit and they kept being sent to new worlds, she held out hope that the next Holy Pillar would be the last. "But Ringabel's the only one with the experience to fly us around Luxendarc, and I'm not fighting without him."

Hardly one to be intimidated, the fairy flies up so that she's eye level with Edea, her own tiny fists straight at her side. "He'll be fine! And we can pilot Grandship without him."

"What, no we can't! Can we?" Edea glances over at Datz, who shrugs.

"He's been teaching us the navigation, but there's a difference going over open water and trying to cross Eternia's peaks." If it were just himself and Zatz, he'd have no problem attempting it. But with the Lady Vestal and her crew on board, as well as the Proprietress, he's a little more wary. It's not unlike piloting a seafaring vessel, just a hell of a lot bigger and with an extra dimension. He also doesn't know if he wants to get into the middle of this argument.

"See?" Edea glares at Airy.

"We can definitely pilot Grandship without him," Airy insists. "And we can fight without him, too. We just need to train up a little and -"

"Airy," Tiz interrupts, tugging a little at his hair. He feels nervous suddenly, but he has to speak before Edea tries to punch Airy or something. That's a bad idea. "How could you possibly know this? No one else has piloted Grandship, have they? And we've never fought without Ringabel, have we?"

"Yes, Airy." Agnès pipes in. "He's always been there." Agnès cannot remember a time when he wasn't, even if he had been knocked out in battle for a few moments, or feeling sick.

"Well…" Airy hesitates. "I still think we need to focus on the Crystals."

"We're not leaving him," Edea says, crossing her arms. "We'll try and get around if we need to, but Ringabel's our pilot. If you don't want this to take too long, try and help!"

She's so small that it's hard to read the expression on her face, but Airy flutters around Edea's form for a moment before she lands on her shoulder. "It's fine as long as it doesn't take _too_ much time…"

But no one bothers to ask her what would happen if it did, because at that moment, Ringabel lets out a quiet, pained sound, and all eyes fall onto his form as he shifts uncomfortably in his sleep. The sound is music to her ears, but Edea quiets all the same. Had they woken him? She reaches out to smooth his hair back out of his face, but stops when she sees him begin to cry, a tear falling from his eye toward the bed.

"I'll cast Cura," Agnès whispers, and stands beside the other woman to work her magic, the healing glow only serving to highlight the harshness of his wounds.

Edea stands and waits, watching as he seems to relax and drift off again. Only then does she take his hand in hers.


End file.
